


That feeling when...

by Sabriel (the_one_a_m_writer)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, Lollipops, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Pining, Roomates AU, depression bananas, inventing new languages, oh my god they were roomates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 16:23:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18641743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_one_a_m_writer/pseuds/Sabriel
Summary: “I've decided to invent a new language,” Tony says, apropos of nothing.“Why?”“Because no language on Earth has a word for the feeling when you're driving 100mph down the highway, windows down, sunglasses on, and Back in Black comes on the radio.”





	That feeling when...

**Author's Note:**

> Sorta handwaves the construction of the AU. Rhodey and Tony are roomates-- that's all you really need to know.  
> Formatting things:

“I've decided to invent a new language,” Tony says, apropos of nothing. JARVIS scans his biometrics and accepts him in; Rhodey searches his face and begins to grin.

“Why?”

“Because no language on Earth has a word for the feeling when you're driving 100mph down the highway, windows down, sunglasses on, and Back in Black comes on the radio.”

“That _is_ an emotion,” Rhodey agrees. “How was your drive?”

“Guess.”

“Back in Black came on, then you spent the rest of the drive planning your language?”

“You know me well, darling,” Tony says, and kisses him on the cheek. “Is there food?”

“Yeah. Burgers. Homemade.”

“Oh my _god_.”

Rhodey puts his hands in his pockets so he won't put one on his cheek, where Tony's lips were.

 

“One of the words for an emotion is just gonna be ‘eating homemade comfort food in your own goddamn home after a long day’.”

“With your best friend?” Rhodey prompts.

Tony looks at him critically for a moment, and finally says, “There's already a word for that.”

Rhodey doesn't think Tony meant to imply that his existence doesn't matter so much as the hamburgers, but... he's not sure.

“By the way, how was newbie-wrangling?”

“Recruit training was great, Tones, thanks for asking.”

Tony laughs. “Did anyone drop a gun?”

“Man, I always do this thing where I hover, like, two _whole-ass_ inches in the air, as an intimidation thing, and one of the kids literally fell over.”

“No way.”

“Yeah.”

“They get booted on the spot?”

“No, but he's not gonna get away with it. He shows promise, unlike some of the other lugs.”

“Did you get another Birhaugen?”

“I did not, luckily. Thank god. Hey-- maybe Birhaugen can be your language's word for ‘complete egomaniac asshole’!”

“ _Perfect._ ” Tony takes the final bite of his burger. “Gotta blast. SHIELD wants new tech.”

“Tones, you literally just left work.”

“I got deadlines, Jamie. I get paid on contract.”

Rhodey sighs. “What were you doing in your lab and SHIELD, then?”

“Well, Steve dropped by to do a debrief, which turned into a weapons breakdown-- anyway, I had to start a whole new project because I couldn't activate JARVIS, because, you know, illegal. First things first when I go down, I'm going to make him automatically activate in silent mode when I'm at work.”

“All right. Have fun. If you’re not back up here by 11, I’m coming for you.”

“Nooooo...” Tony whines, walking away.

 

Like twin comets, Tony and Rhodey streak towards the people-landing-pad, designed for use by Falcon, War Machine, Iron Man, Thor, and the Bifrost in general. Tony flips upright and fires the foot thrusters in a precise move that has him setting down on his feet with a feather-light touch. He’s practiced that, by the way, far more than any of his actual maneuvers-- and he told Rhodey about the time he killed the jets a foot over his roof and smashed up a classic car. Rhodey forgoes the fancy footwork and smashes down onto his fist and knee. The suit’s dampening system prevents him from fucking up his joints.

“Natasha!” Tony cries, the suit peeling itself open so Tony can step out. Rhodey pops the helmet but stays in the suit.

“Stark. Rhodes. You’re late for training. Again.”

“His fault,” Rhodey insists immediately.

Natasha’s eyes are warm. “Steve was getting antsy.”

“Steve is always antsy,” Tony argues. “Is there any emotion that you’ve felt that languages don’t have a word for?”

“Yes,” Natasha says immediately.

“If, hypothetically, I was creating a new language--”

Natasha turns to look at Rhodey questioningly. Rhodey shrugs and hopes it conveys “ _please indulge him._ ”

“The feeling,” Natasha interrupts, “when your asshole partner is much too fond of making codenames, and he’s turned a word into a codename for something stupid, and now you have to use or hear the word in a professional setting, but you can’t stop thinking of the double meaning behind every one of your sentences.”

“ _Excellent._ ”

The suit assembles itself so it can follow Tony as he marches into the building, probably to go needle Fury before Natasha and Rhodey catch up. Natasha turns to Rhodey.

“Where’d the new language thing come from?”

“He was listening to Back in Black on the way home and decided he needed a new word to express that emotion,” Rhodey says.

“Ah.”

Natasha watches his face for a while longer, and then says, “So, have you made any progress?”

“No,” Rhodey says.

“How do you expect anything to change between you two if you don’t do anything?”

“I _know_ ,” Rhodey complains.

“You’re pathetic.”

“I _know_ , I _know_.”

“The entire time he was talking about his made-up language you had little hearts in your eyes.”

“UGH.” Rhodey slams the faceplate down, because War Machine has a much more intimidating resting bitch face than he does.

 

“The feeling of seeing Buck again,” Steve says.

Tony hits him. “No!”

“Oh, I have an emotion for seeing Barnes,” Sam says. “It’s called pure distaste. It’s comparable to finding gum on your shoe.”

“Ey! Fuck you!” Bucky shouts, and lunges at Sam. Sam launches himself in the air. Bucky jumps into the rafters, and leaps at Sam, aiming to grab Sam’s leg and pull him to earth. Steve sighs.

“Why ‘no’?” Rhodey asks, curious.

“That’s not unique,” Tony says. He squints at Bucky. “There’re a lot of words for that.”

The feeling Steve gets when he sees Bucky again. Yeah. Love. Stupid, gooey love.

_That’s not unique._

Oh, God. That can’t mean...

Tony, who is still staring at Bucky as he finally gets a grip on the edge of Sam’s wing and they crash to the gym floor...

 _No jumping to conclusions, James,_ Rhodey tells himself. And then feels jealous anyway.

Bucky stands up, dusts himself off, and walks over. “The very unsettling feeling of someone testing the touch receptors on my palm while my arm isn’t connected to my body. _Stark._ ”

“What?!” Tony says, hands raised defensively. “I had to test that the connectivity would work without physical connection!”

“I’m gonna take your fuckin arm off and brush a feather around the palm,” Bucky mutters. Tony looks concerned.

“Ooh!” Sam shakes out his wings, like a dog. “The feeling of watching Bucky apply eyeliner!”

“ _Eyeliner?_ ” Rhodey and Tony gasp in tandem. Steve starts laughing his head off. Sam grins.

“See, because you’re like, man, this looks _so wrong._ But at the same time, he’d look _so wrong_ without the eyeliner. Actually, it’s the same feeling as watching Steve put his socks and boots on when he’s wearing the Captain America suit, but that’s less intense.”

“That’s a _good_ one,” Tony agrees. “But-- Cap? I thought I designed it so it didn’t need socks!”

“Sam watched me put on the old suit.”

“That he stole from the Smithsonian.”

Steve gasps. “How dare--”

“Captain America stole from the Smithsonian?!” Bucky demands incredulously.

“I thought it would trigger your memory,” Steve admits. “Also-- it’s our fucking stuff!”

Bucky nods, suddenly, his face turning from disappointed to righteous. “Wait, yeah! It’s our fucking stuff!”

“Oh, God,” Rhodey says.

 

Later, Tony’s collected a new emotion. It was written on the face of the kind, elderly docent as he tried desperately to convince two war-hero super-soldiers to talk to his manager before reclaiming an item apiece which they both claimed they’d “been looking for.” Boys. You were both on ice.

Honestly, now that Barnes is back, Steve has these-- moments, these relapses, where you can _see_ the scrawny Brooklyn boy shining through the six feet of pure American captaincy.

Sometimes, Rhodey sees fifteen-year-old MIT whiz kid in Tony, and wonders if he’s the one to inspire it.

Enh, probably not; they’re not _soulmates_ or anything like the super-soldier couple. That would require reciprocation of feelings.

 

Tony’s on a kick. The Avengers and Ms Potts and Mr Hogan have all been coming forward with ridiculous word upon ridiculous word. Tony’s tossed around the idea of the language being constructed solely from these words of extremely specific meaning, but Rhodey has suggested that this would be like learning to write Chinese-- but worse. Far worse.

He’s started actually developing the thing, too. It’s going to be a very well-engineered language. It’s got less consonants, but additional vowels that Tony is making up as he goes, like the one that looks like a sideways v with a slash and makes the ‘aw’ sound of ‘awful’. He’s shown Rhodey some of the words. Rhodey tests out the sounds of them in his mouth, and asks the meanings, which he immediately forgets. Tony remembers, though, somehow. Tony’s actually learning this language as he develops it.

Anyway, by now, you can say “I really planned to have it done today, but I felt the specific kind of terrible that happens when you’ve fucked up your sleep schedule beyond belief even after last night’s 8 hour rest, so I hope you can accept my paperwork tomorrow” in, like, four words, but if you wanted to say “Steve burned the pancake” that is actually impossible. So far, Tony has words for “explode” and “food”, so you could say “Steve exploded food”, but that wasn’t really what Rhodey was going for when he tried to test Tony’s language skills at Team Brunch that morning.

 

It’s midnight, and they have work tomorrow, so Rhodey goes downstairs to the workshop to fetch Tony. Tony, as usual, is hard at work, soldering something at the moment. There’s a holographic screen in front of him, and JARVIS is saying something. It takes Rhodey a moment to realize that the reason he can’t understand JARVIS is not because of the AC/DC playing in the lab. It’s because JARVIS isn’t speaking English.

Wait a minute.

Rhodey recognizes that word.

That’s ‘explode’.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony says, and then, “Okay. Worry, that’s <worry>. I can say worry _of_... worry about. <worry> JARVIS, let’s make a new word for about, huh? <about>. Don’t <worry about it.> Negation, negation, okay-- <worry not about it>. There we go.”

So that’s how he keeps growing the list. He must just constantly talk to JARVIS to find new words he hasn’t addressed yet.

“Sir, I don’t yet have a word for concern.”

“<concern>,” Tony says immediately. Rhodey wonders what the creation process is. There’s a faint hint of some germanic language in the root Tony’s chosen for <concern>, but it deliberately doesn’t sound like English.

“<I am concerned>,” JARVIS says.

Rhodey realizes he’s been standing there, doe-eyed, staring, for a solid minute, and Tony’s talking about explosions with his AI at midnight. Self-conscious, Rhodey pretends to have just walked in.

“Tony, it’s bedtime.”

“Rhodey! I was in the middle of something.”

“You’re always in the middle of something.”

“JARVIS, _ech_ ,” Tony says, and the whole system runs through its shutdown sequence. Okay. _Ech._ Off.

Rhodey forces Tony to bed, but before he himself falls asleep, he runs through the words he knows. <Off. I am concerned. Worry about it/Don’t worry about it. Explode. Food.>

 

Rhodey’s silently learning the language along with Tony, as if the minute he lets Tony in on the fact that he knows, something will change. Tony keeps getting new suggestions for words, and they aren’t all emotions anymore; in fact, they’re starting to develop specifically to be useful for the team. “Summoned to Fury’s office” is one word now, and “Danger to your left/right/top/below/front/behind” are a set of six words, carefully chosen so that they can’t be confused with one another. Not that the team has started learning the language, yet. They just know the six “danger shorthand” words.

Anyway, now Tony’s started to chatter with JARVIS in this language _constantly_. Rhodey visits his SHIELD lab during his breaks and always catches the tail end of a conversation, but more than that, Tony will converse with JARVIS in public and... some of these conversations actually sound pretty private.

If you’re speaking in a language no one else knows, Rhodey supposes, you can assume any conversation’s private.

So of course now he feels like he’s eavesdropping.

<After we’re done ??? Steve’s upgrades, I’m going to ????? secret back-door into SHIELD...> Tony says, walking in front of a huddle of SHIELD agents. They are none the wiser.

 

“Do you ever wonder if you've heard a song for the last time?” Tony asks.

It’s a bit of a deviation from the norm for them. Tony’s gotten it into his head to bake something, which happens very rarely, and because it’s Tony, this is a Whole Production. There’s something in the oven. Rhodey is washing one of the stand mixers. Tony is using the other. There’s flour absolutely everywhere, because Tony has an innate knowledge of physics and yet forgets that when he dumps two cups of dry flour into the stand mixer and turns it on it’ll cause a flour-bomb _every time_.

And of course, JARVIS is busily shuffling 80’s classics for them.

“Not until now,” Rhodey says. “Now it’s making me sad.”

“What haven’t you listened to in a while?”

“I don’t know!”

“JARVIS, start a playlist. Put everything you’ve played so far in it. See, now we can add any songs we remember--”

“JARVIS, shuffle the playlist whenever we’re baking.”

“That’s not very often,” Tony says. “But it’s a start. Obviously, now we have to bake something at least once a month.”

“Your language should have a word for panicking about the inevitability of death and spontaneously creating new traditions.”

“Hmm. Being driven by the looming inevitability of death to start something new before you can’t anymore?”

“I like that. More general.”

“It’s got its uses,” Tony says. Rhodey doesn’t hear the mixer go on for another minute.

“Tony?” Rhodey looks up, and Tony startles, suddenly lowering his eyes to the bowl and resuming. He must have gotten lost in thought again. “I smell caramelization.”

“We have a timer on the oven.”

“Yeah, but it smells done.”

“The recipe said twenty-five.”

“Yeah, but it _smells_ done,” Rhodey says. He reaches toward the oven. Tony screeches like a banshee and grabs his arms.

“JUST WAIT 45 SECONDS!”

The little tussle they have lasts exactly 45 seconds, because it ends with the startling beep of the oven timer, but Tony and Rhodey both emerge from it as coated in flour as the kitchen.

“Look at this _beauty_ ,” Tony coos, pulling the pan from the oven with a set of red metal gauntlets instead of baking mitts. “Perfectly cooked,” he adds pointedly.

Rhodey crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.

Ten minutes later, Tony abruptly stops in the middle of spreading cream in the pan and says, “JARVIS. ‘Being driven by the looming inevitability of death to start something new before you can’t anymore’. _Vonaguen_.”

“Noted, Sir,” says JARVIS.

 

“Hawkeye, <report on everyone’s positions>,” Steve says, a statement which takes him two words.

“Bucky’s got <danger to the left>, <civilians (who are your responsibility to save) in front of you>,” Clint says, and that takes him three words. “Widow and Falcon got the hostages, <they and associated humans are currently safe in their position>, and Tony and Rhodey are finishing off the <minions/goons/droids/lackeys/underlings/henchmen/drones which were sent in droves by the villain to overwhelm us>. Cap, <there will be danger above you in a moment>.”

Tony had been shoving his new code words at the team for a while, but not the whole language, Rhodey noticed. Clint had picked up the words immediately, then convinced Thor to use them. Thor, by sheer enthusiasm, convinced Bruce to use them. Natasha was next on the bandwagon; she mentioned something about never having to experience <the feeling when your asshole partner is much too fond of making codenames, and he’s turned a word into a codename for something stupid, and now you have to use or hear the word in a professional setting, but you can’t stop thinking of the double meaning behind every one of your sentences> ever again. Rhodey is using the words, of course, and Sam picked up on them because it pissed Bucky off, but now Steve’s using them because Tony, Rhodey, Clint, Thor, Bruce, Natasha, and Sam are using them, so Bucky had no choice but to learn them also. Anyway. Hence the codewords in the middle of a fight.

Fury’s on the comms, but no-one’s actually told him what any of the words mean. Rhodey can only assume he’s got the majority of them figured out, but once, he was at base and only Clint, Nat, and Bucky (the stealth crew) were dispatched on a run, and just watched Fury’s eye slowly narrow as he listened into the comms.

Rhodey’s a good, responsible, professional SHIELD employee, so he doesn’t gain any amusement from this at all, no sir.

Anyway, yeah, the language is getting pretty sophisticated.

 

Without looking up from his tablet, Tony asks, “JARVIS, <is Rhodey’s birthday coming up>?”

Rhodey stops reading his book in surprise.

“<Yes, sir.>”

“<I want to surprise him.>”

Does Tony still think he doesn’t understand his new language?

“<Of course, sir.>”

Apparently so. Tony looks up from his tablet, finally, as if he’s about to get into it with JARVIS about the surprise planning. Rhodey puts the book down.

“I’m hungry. D’you wanna order pizza?” Rhodey asks.

“Sure.” Tony smiles at him. Rhodey can already feel himself grinning stupidly back and forces himself to walk over to where his phone is. It’s just that this is... this is Tony without deadlines. This is Tony with a mission that’s lighthearted for once. It’s _adorable._

“<So I was thinking...>” Tony says. Rhodey calls the same pizza place as always and orders the same pizza as always.

 

There are robots everywhere. Thor and Sam are both absent from this particular battle, and Clint and Natasha were left at home due to unsuitability, or something, which leaves Steve, Buck, and the Hulk crushing up robots on ground level, and Rhodey and Tony providing air support. They’ve been informed that the robots have already done what damage there is to be done, and all civilians were successfully evacuated prior to this, which means all they have to do is crush robots with as much prejudice as possible.

Tony’s spinning with glee. Literally. They’re approximately half a minute (six miles) away from the battle site, coming in at just under Mach 1, and Tony’s doing barrel rolls.

“You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“Am not,” Tony says, and trips as he touches down. “Are you ready to kick the shit out of some bots?”

“Nice of you to join the party, Stark, Rhodes,” Steve says through the comms, already breathing hard. They’re working out from the epicenter of the destruction, creating a thinning donut of active bots. “You two want to take the outside?”

“Of course!”

They can fly rings around the bots, so they do. The streams of their repulsors scorch the earth. Working in tandem, they pick off bots, soaring over the streets, flying through skeletons of buildings to flush them out, going sixty miles an hour inches from concrete pillars. The HUD tells Rhodey where Tony is in relation to him at all times, and Rhodey loves flying to intercept him in the middle of a pack of bots so that they can do a repulsor high-five and blow them all up. It’s like dancing.

They both hit the last bot with both repulsors at once, melting it almost instantly, and land facing each other. Tony pops the helmet. Rhodey follows suit.

“ _That’s_ an emotion I need a word for. Fighting like that.”

“Side-by-side?”

Tony gives him that look again. “There’s a word for that.”

Suddenly, the battle isn’t so awesome anymore. “There’s a word for that” is rapidly becoming Rhodey’s least favorite phrase.

“Do you two want to join us for dinner, or do you already have plans?” Steve asks, jogging over.

“Why would we have plans?” Rhodey asks.

Steve looks at him. At Tony. At him. “We’re going to get Greek,” he says finally.

Bruce and Bucky wander up, Bruce shirtless. Steve, the fucking Boy Scout, picks up a kevlar-vibranium backpack (Tony’s invention) and pulls a spare shirt out of it to give to Bruce, as well as sandals.

“Thanks. For the record, Bucky and I weren’t going to interrupt if you were having a moment. That was all Steve.”

Bucky nods.

“There was no moment,” Tony says. “Moments? Who has those? Greek sounds great; let’s go. Are you driving? We’ll fly.”

“Yeah, just follow the car,” Steve says, sounding a little caught off-guard.

 

“How are your code-words coming along?” Bruce asks.

“It’s a whole language,” Tony says. “Really, though, I made it so I could have words for emotions that don’t exist yet. Like the feeling when you’ve just made something work, and even though you were expecting it to work, you still get a rush of surprise-- like maybe you weren’t expecting it to work that quickly.”

“I need a word for a warped kind of deja-vu where I haven’t done or said something before, but the Hulk has, and I’m remembering it.”

“I’ll get right on that,” Tony promises.

The waitress comes by again and asks if they're doing all right (they are). Then she asks if they would like more water; they say yes, and Steve says “without ice, please.” As with every single other time Steve has done this, the waitress looks at Steve and visibly wonders if it's because of the being frozen thing. It's not. It's because Steve _isn't used to ice in his water_. He, not Bucky, was also the one to throw a fit about bananas.

Speaking of bananas, the ice thing reminds Tony about the bananas, and he starts ribbing Steve about fruit again.

“All I'm saying is, I liked bananas the way they were.”

“So you'd go back to, like, 30’s era.”

“Yeah.”

“So, if you had a choice between the Great Depression and shitty bananas, you'd--”

“That's not what I _said_ \--”

“No, no,” Bucky cuts in, “there was still the 20’s, right? So if you had a choice between the 20’s and now, based on bananas?”

“I like the 20’s bananas.”

“So you'd go for the widespread homophobia--”

Rhodey snorts a little. Steve flushes. “ _That's_ not what I said!”

“I think banana-flavored lollipops would be closer to Steve’s depression bananas than ours,” Bruce says.

Steve’s looking contemplative. Rhodey heads that off. “Banana lollipops are shit.”

“Concur,” Bucky says, raising a hand. “They do taste vaguely of bananas, though, in the same way grape lollipops taste like grapes.”

“I will make my own determination,” Steve says, frowning. Tony’s eyes light up. Rhodey knows that look.

“ _No,_ Tony.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to do!”

“Order a shitton of lollipops?”

“Well, yes and--”

“Ha!”

“Yes and _no_ , you see, it’s for science--”

“I approve,” Bruce says.

“See, Bruce approves.”

“Just because you said ‘it’s for science’.”

“ _Any_ way, we’re going to do a lollipop taste test.”

“It’s for team-building purposes,” Steve agrees.

“Steve, you weren’t even part of the plan,” Bucky says. “On the other hand, did you know bacon flavored lollipops are a thing?”

“You’re all children,” Rhodey says. And has some very vivid memories of Tony, because it’s Tony, being suggestive with a lollipop. “Children,” he repeats.

 

“What’s this?”

“Lollipop taste testing,” Tony says. The only reason he’s in the suit is so he can actually hold his box of lollipops.

“Uh huh,” Natasha says. “I’ll get the boys, shall I?”

Tony nods and puts his box down. Rhodey sits down in front of the box and starts peeling off the tape.

Everyone is here today: Tony and Rhodey, Natasha, Bruce, Clint, Steve, Bucky, Sam, Thor. Natasha appears with them all in tow.

“In the name of science!” Tony says.

“Is there a banana one?” Steve asks. Rhodey digs through the box, which isn’t organized or anything-- just thousands of lollipops in a box. He fishes out a banana one and hands it to Steve.

Almost as a collective unit, the Avengers hold their breath and watch Steve taste a depression banana lollipop.

Steve makes a face of utter dismay.

“Toldja,” Bucky says. “Here. Gimme. There’s a trash can.”

“It’s mine,” Steve says petulantly.

He’s not in the uniform, but he did go for ‘professional’-- SHIELD polo, slacks instead of jeans. So now there’s this massive man in business casual who happens to also be a superhero and the face of patriotism for the nation looking all glum because he’s currently having a lollipop.

“That’s a fucking emotion,” Tony says, pointing at Steve’s face. “That. Right there.”

 

The first thing they do is take turns trying the buttered popcorn ones. These, Sam describes as “depressingly, they taste exactly like buttered popcorn” which is... so true. Buttered popcorn tastes great, but the texture is all wrong. Tony comes up with a new word for “this is really good but at the same time it’s _incorrect_ ”. Then they try the bacon ones, which make everyone make gagging faces except Clint, who declares that they're the best thing ever. He simultaneously gets proclaimed a heathen and receives their remaining stash of bacon lollipops. Then there are the vanilla ones, which are new but not distasteful. They also have spicy ones, which are a little weird; Tony and Thor are the only ones who can tolerate them for long enough to eat the entire lollipop, but Tony decides if he wanted spicy, he wouldn’t have a lollipop. (Thor thinks they’re fantastic. Thor also thinks Pop Tarts and ramen are haute cuisine.) Then, of course, are all the fruit flavored ones. They all spend time ranking the flavors and find out that Bruce is the literal only one who would rank orange first.

The next step is playing a guessing game with all the flavors. The second time Steve gets blindly fed a bacon lollipop, he gives Rhodey such a devastating look of utter betrayal that it almost makes him feel bad for the captain. Almost. Steve is also _definitely_ aware of the plan to stick something that’s not a lollipop (a piece of cardboard) in Clint’s mouth, and Steve is _definitely_ being an enabler. Sure enough, Clint closes his eyes and opens his mouth and Steve watches as Bucky carefully feeds him cardboard. Clint flips his shit, of course, and starts spitting, and once he’s got a saliva-soaked piece of cardboard in his hand, he throws it at who he thinks fed him the cardboard. Unfortunately, he thinks it’s Sam.

Cue battle.

In the aftermath, there are lollipops everywhere and no real winner. Tony stuffs two fistfuls of lollipops, cherry for him and blue raspberry for Rhodey, in his pocket, unnoticed amongst the confusion.

Then Nick Fury shows up to see how the “team meeting” is going.

“Great,” Steve replies from amid the lollipop war zone. “Team bonding,” he explains.

Fury shakes his head and leaves.

Steve cajoles them all into actually participating with clean-up, so they do, but they’re all also sucking on lollipops the entire time. Tony locks eyes with Rhodey. Pops the lollipop out of his lips. Licks it in the most suggestive way he knows.

 _That little shit_ , Rhodey thinks, trying desperately to return to his task, but all around him are lollipops. It’s not helping his concentration.

 

Rhodey and Tony are sitting on the couch again, eating leftover pizza. Tony’s reading a book or something on his tablet. Rhodey’s playing Clash of Clans on his phone. Tony looks up; says something that Rhodey hasn’t quite learned yet in his language.

“Huh?”

“Oh, never mind,” Tony says.

A minute later, Rhodey barely hears as Tony murmurs, “<JARVIS?>”

“<Yes, sir?>”

“<Do you think Rhodey likes me?>”

“<I think Col. Rhodes is ????? of you, yes.>”

“<Do you think Rhodey likes me as more than friends?>”

Rhodey forces himself not to react. This conversation isn’t his. Tony _still thinks_ he doesn’t know the language.

“<I don’t have the ability to determine that, sir.>”

Why is Tony asking? Is it hopeful? Is it because he caught Rhodey staring one too many times and wants to know, so he can head this thing off early?

Either way, Tony drops the subject. Rhodey can’t process anything past the thoughts whirling around in his brain and finally turns his phone screen off.

He’s still thinking about it late at night, and doesn’t get much sleep at all.

 

Natasha sees. Natasha always sees.

Tony drops into where Rhodey and Natasha are working with some of the younger SHIELD agents, bearing a cardboard box filled to the brim with tech. “Here,” he says, dropping it in Rhodey’s hands. “New toys.”

“Mhmm,” Rhodey says, instead of, you know, words.

“See you at lunch,” Tony says.

Rhodey watches him leave.

Okay, to be fair, that one wasn’t that hard to see.

“What changed?” she asks, pawing through the box. There’re all sorts of non-lethal incapacitation methods in there.

“Nothin’,” Rhodey says unconvincingly.

“Yeah. What changed?”

The SHIELD people are staring.

“We’ll talk later!” Rhodey says quickly, and goes to immerse himself with their training.

 

‘Later’ is at break time, where they have ten minutes between classes. Rhodey’s made up his mind. He needs advice.

“He asked JARVIS if I liked him, last night,” Rhodey says.

“In front of you?”

“He was speaking that language. He thinks I don’t understand.”

Natasha nods. “Rhodes, honestly, I think you should just tell him.”

“I can’t do that!” Rhodey says, tipping himself back in his chair. “Nat. _What if he doesn’t like me_?”

“He’ll be flattered that he thinks you’re cute?”

“It’ll be weird though. He’ll stop, I dunno, he’ll stop hugging me.”

“Tony isn’t homophobic, James.”

“Or he does this thing where I’m sitting on the couch and he goes and puts his head in my lap. He’d stop doing that, because it’ll be weird.”

Natasha looks at him with dead eyes. “He does that?”

“Yeah.”

“Rhodes.”

“What?”

“Rhodes,” she sighs. “Please, go on, continue to prove to me that he likes you right back.”

Hah. As if. “You know the language?”

“Yeah, Tony’s language?”

“He keeps asking me to suggest new words, which I do, but every time I say something and I add that--” Rhodey suddenly realizes how incredibly sappy he’s about to sound, and trails off. Natasha knows. Natasha glares at him.

“Go on.”

“I’ll say the feeling of... and what we’d be doing... and that it would be the two of us together...”

“And the assumption is you feel that when you’re with him?”

“Doing whatever it is with him,” Rhodey clarifies.

“Right, of course. Go on.”

“And he always takes out the together part. Always says there’s already a word for that.”

“Mhm. Well. James. I have an _idea_ of what that word might be.”

“It’s whatever the new word is, just without the together part, I know,” Rhodey says. “I guess, his language, his rules about what words go in or not.”

“Does he say there’s already a word for anything else?”

“Oh!” This is good evidence for why he shouldn’t confess. “When Steve suggested something.”

“What was it?”

“The feel of getting Bucky back or something.”

“James.”

“Yeah.”

“Steve and Bucky are together.”

“Well, yeah, ‘course they are.”

“James.”

“Yeah.”

“Tony wants you two to be together.”

“Not for sure,” Rhodey says.

Nat looks at him for a long time, and then stands up and walks away, pressing her hand to his shoulder as she goes.

 

“<JARVIS, how do you ???? someone to like you?>”

Rhodey isn’t in the room this time, actually, having just come back from a grocery run.

“<?????? me to search this, sir?>”

“<Yeah. Search it.>”

“I’m back!” Rhodey yells, interrupting the conversation. He hears Tony hastily mute JARVIS.

Okay. So Tony likes someone.

That doesn’t mean it’s him.

“Did you get kale? And yogurt?”

“Yes, I got kale and yogurt.”

“Thank you. You’re the best, honeybear.”

Doesn’t mean it’s him.

“So Pet Semetary’s playing. Do you want to go see it tomorrow?”

“Sure!”

Then Rhodey adds, just to test the waters, “Is anyone else coming?”

“I wasn’t going to invite anyone else, why?”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. Yeah, let’s go see it tomorrow.”

Doesn’t mean it’s him.

“Because we could, if we wanted, we could make a thing out of it. Maybe some of the team would come along? Probably not most of them, but Steve and Bucky are always available--”

Definitely doesn’t mean it’s him.

“I’d rather just go see it with you,” Rhodey says honestly.

“Oh, okay. Yeah. Me... yeah. Me too.”

 

Tomorrow.

Rhodey’s got one of Tony’s jackets that he might want and walks up to his room-- which is a war zone, it would seem. There are shirts everywhere. Tony himself is shirtless, and has one shirt that he’s holding and staring at contemplatively.

“You good?”

“Rhodey!”

Tony drops the shirt, then bends to pick it up again. Hastily, he puts the shirt on.

“I-- I-- I was looking for a shirt.”

“Looks like you found it.”

“Yeah.”

“Your shirt’s inside out,” Rhodey says, and stays to watch as Tony takes the shirt off again.

It’s half an hour before they have to leave to get to the theater, so Rhodey dithers around, cleaning up the kitchen. He tries not to overthink anything too much. It’s been a while since they went out to see a movie, just the two of them, and wonders why Tony brought it up. It’s not like either of them were really looking forward to Pet Semetary either-- Rhodey had mentioned maybe once that it looked alright, and that was apparently that.

“<JARVIS.>”

“<Yes, sir.>”

“<What’s a good first date?>”

Rhodey freezes. Doesn’t interrupt this time. He’ll figure it out, he decides, and this’ll be the end of it, for better or worse.

“<There’s no time to get ?????,>” Tony laments. “<Would it be really childish to give a bouquet of lollipops?>”

JARVIS doesn’t answer. Tony clatters around in his room a bit more. “<You’re right, JARVIS,>” he says, and finally emerges from the room. “You ready to go, jellybean?”

“Yeah, sure,” Rhodey says. His voice sounds distracted even to him.

“I’ll drive,” Tony says, as always.

They get to the movie theater, and as they’re walking to their seats, Tony hands him a lollipop.

A blue raspberry one, of course.

Rhodey trips on the stairs, and Tony reaches out to steady him. “Thanks,” he says, taking the lollipop.

“No problem. I just had-- I mean-- I decided to, you know, grab a lollipop. Actually there are... more lollipops. If you want them. I accidentally grabbed a bunch of lollipops.”

Accidentally, huh?

And the pieces finally slot into place-- or Rhodey stops denying, or something, because he can’t ignore the fact that as much as he’s determined to believe Tony doesn’t like him, he _knows_ Tony-- and _knows_ Tony just chickened out of giving him a fucking boquet of lollipops and instead stuck a bunch in his pocket. And he knows what that means, too.

Tony likes him.

 _Tony likes him_.

“I wouldn’t think it was childish,” Rhodey blurts, like a dumbass. He hastens to clarify, before Tony can freeze or run or do whatever it was Tony was going to do-- which probably involved escape. “I heard you. Talking to JARVIS. And I, yeah, date--” _come on, words--_ “I want to-- I want to go on a date with you. This is a date, I mean. But I want it to be one.”

Tony stares at him for a very long time and finally pulls from his pocket seven lollipops that are tied together in a little lollipop flower with a ribbon and everything.

In the darkened theater, Rhodey can just barely see Tony’s eyes, but he’s lit softly by the light from the screen. He reaches out and covers Tony’s hand holding the lollipop flower, curling his fingers in. Tony tilts his face up, just slightly, and--

“Sit down!” someone hisses.

 

The movie is the longest two hours of Rhodey’s life.

Where he really wants to be is somewhere he can talk with Tony. Where he can admit to learning his language and that he’s liked him this whole time. The movie feels like an interruption. They can go somewhere where there isn’t a stiff plastic arm rest between them, and they don’t feel too exposed to try to test the waters with each other. He’d love to put his arm around Tony, but he’s sweating from nerves, and anyway, Tony _technically didn’t say_ it was a date. In fact, Tony didn’t do any of the confessing yet.

Within the span of two hours, he prevents himself from overthinking it probably two hundred times. In fact, the only thing keeping him sane right now is the little blue lollipop in his hand.

He puts it in his mouth.

 _Blue raspberry_ is the only thing he remembers about Pet Semetary.

 

There’s someone outside who says, “Is that Tony Stark?” which leads to a little mob, so they shove themselves in the car and speed away, and neither of them say a fucking word until they get home, where Tony performs his shittiest parking job in a decade and they go inside.

“You _understood all that_?” is the first thing out of Tony’s mouth.

“Most of it. I picked up quick.”

“Oh God.” Tony puts his head in his hands. “What were you-- saying? At the theater? I thought I misheard, and I didn’t want to--”

“I want to date you,” Rhodey says. He’s still clutching the lollipop flower. “I like you. A lot. In a more-than-friends way.”

“You’re...?” Tony says; trails off. “Can I kiss you? If this is a date, I mea-- mmph!”

They’re kissing. Rhodey’s wanted to do this for he doesn’t know how long and it’s _incredible_. Tony tastes like cherry and there’s a lingering taste of blue raspberry in his mouth.

Finally, they stop for breath, and Rhodey puts his forehead against Tony’s, and they breathe against each other and the air smells like candy too.

“Is it-- fuck. Is it too soon to ask you to be my boyfriend?” Tony asks.

“I’ll be your boyfriend,” Rhodey says.

“Oh my _God._ ”

 

Tony asks again, after they’re lying sated on Tony’s bed, Rhodey’s arms around Tony. “Am I moving too fast?”

“Never,” Rhodey says. “I’ve waited too long for this. I didn’t think you liked me.”

“I did.”

“I know that now.”

“You move so fast, Tones, especially that big brain of yours, but you could never move too fast for me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah,” Rhodey says. And then, “You know how I know?”

“How?”

“Because I know you so well that I know the reason you keep asking is because you have one more thing you want to tell me.”

“ _Fuck._ ”

Tony tips his head back the slightest bit so it rests solidly on Rhodey’s collarbone.

“You know how I kept saying there was a word for that?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Because every time you said something about doing something _with you_ , all I could think was _love_.”

It makes Rhodey’s heart stutter in his chest.

“I love you, too!” he exclaims. Because he does. 

 

“So your language doesn’t have a word for ‘love’?”

“No,” Tony says with a shrug. “Although, if I’m being really honest, I panicked the first time I said that and then I couldn’t really... go back on it. I don’t know. It can be our own little inside joke.”

“We should make one,” Rhodey says.

They do.

“<I love you,>” Rhodey says, smiling wildly.

“<I love you, too,>” Tony says. And adds, “<This is _better_ than the feeling when you’re driving 100mph down the highway, windows down, sunglasses on, and Back in Black comes on the radio.>”

Rhodey kisses him, because he can.

**Author's Note:**

> ...If you so wished, you could give Tony suggestions for another emotion or word in the comments... just say'n...


End file.
